Post Wedding Moment of Clarity; Lessons to Learn

It’s said that every little girl’s dream to have a storybook wedding. Ignoring what some would call an obviously sexist ideology, we’ll agree with this to avoid any argument to the contrary. Take one for the bloody team for the sake of this article! I don’t have time to cater to every bleeding feminist war cry out there.

Yes, bearded lady, your point of view will be heard… eventually.

So, if a storybook wedding is every girl’s dream, then the one I just had must be the anomaly. I’m not saying it was bad. Quite the contrary. The result was the same; the groom was blessed with me as a wife until he dies. That’s how I understood it, at any rate. There was something in the ceremony about loving, honouring, and cherishing me. I am pretty sure there was an “obey” in there somewhere.

Not being the stereotypical fairytale wedding, mine was unique. Not jug band, hillbilly unique, but a definite type of crazy one usually has to tune into the tele for some sort of Gary Busey fix.

It was a peculiar mixture of me looking absolutely stunning in my dress, the bridesmaids being beautiful, (but not on my level of beauty, of course), Tresckow attempting to kill one of my bridesmaids, and mini bar shenanigans. This concoction still isn’t volatile enough for you? Well, add a healthy dose of motorcycle gang and ex-IRA and you have the uranium core of a marital super weapon that could take out most of the Pacific Northwest.

Bugger. There goes Yakima.

As you may remember from Tresckow’s article he bitched and moaned about traveling to my wedding. Piss off, mate, it’s a small price to pay to get a front row seat to the performance of a lifetime. Tresckow and Ren have a type of antagonist relationship that could, possibly, end in the death of small children and the elderly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cute. She constantly bugs the ever loving shit out of him and he prays for death. Awwwwwww.

Tresckow is my self-adopted brother. Yes, I admit that. Don’t try to understand it, just accept it. When it is all sussed out, we’re family. Ren, being my husband’s sister (poor bastard), believes that she and Tresckow are brother and sister-in- law via some sort of muddled drunken Mick logic. Whatever the whiskey induced mathematical equation she used to arrive at that conclusion, the result ends in constant emotional and physical pain for Tresckow. It makes me laugh. What? Siblings should revel in each other’s misery.

Pictured: Irish logic.

With the combination of Ren, my mother, Tresckow, Roode, a plethora of alleged “one percenters,” and visitors from the UK (Northern Irish and British- another explosive combination) the event had no choice but to be the Poseidon Adventure of weddings.

Come to think on it, this may have been the only way to get some of those Micks upright.

It’s no secret that my wedding exploded beyond control. What was supposed to be a small, quiet affair ended up in the newspaper and a blip on the local news. Half of Northern Ireland attended (those legally allowed to leave British soil and otherwise) and a might more bikers showed up than originally thought. To top it all, I actually had a good turn out with my family. That was a surprise. Oh, and Tresckow, my self-adopted brother, was there to be my therapist, confidant, and giver-awayer [insert another obligatory mushy “Awwww” here].

So, out of all this beautiful mess, what have I learned? I’m so very glad you asked. I’ve broken it down into 15 short tidbits of knowledge you may not have known. Also, for my enjoyment (and I suppose for some of you), each lesson is presented by a woman wearing the naughty teacher outfit I wore on the wedding night. No. There will be no photographs of that anywhere near this website.

Hitting someone in the head with a hymnal during a wedding ceremony will make a significant sound that echoes. As will the “Bloody Mary, OUCH” that follows.

You would think this is common sense. Ah, but common sense took a vacation during my wedding ceremony. Long of the short of it, some of the boozed up Northern Irishmen got into a Three Stooges-esq slapfest towards the end of the wedding vows. I hope God laughed, because I did not. Wankers.

It’s not the best idea for your (soon-to-be) sister-in-law to give directions to the groomsmen and have them repeatedly lead to a strip club.

Ren, fancies herself a funny girl. She’s good for a chuckle, I’ll give her that. I suppose that’s why she doctored the directions to the after- rehearsal boozing to lead Tresckow, Roode, and the others to the “Gentleman’s Club” in town. Did I mention they were on foot, hoofing it through a town none of them were familiar with? After the first hour of wandering through the streets, repeatedly passing the same strip club, they started to catch on. In, yet again, another page from the Three Stooges play book, they blamed each other and started a street by street snowball fight. From what I’m told, it was a slightly less organized, slightly more destructive Battle of Berlin. What IS funny about all of this? None of them wanted to call for directions. Why? MEN DON’T NEED TO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS! Bloody retarded.

They did all this with snow?

Fist fights should not break out in public; let alone, in front of a patrol car.

There’s really not much more to say about this. All out brawls should be done in the privacy of a back alley or in the elevator in a hospital. Come to think on it, ANYWHERE that isn’t in front of a police patrol car is a better place for a fist fight. Why in crikey fuck couldn’t they wait ten more feet until filling the air with fists and broken whiskey bottles?

Ham sandwiches should not be thrown off 15th story balconies.

Do I really need to go into further detail on this? Here’s a simple mathematical formula:

This is true no matter who you are. It will happen and you’re powerless to stop it. Keep in mind, if you protest too much, they can crush your windpipe.

Your brother yelling “It’s show time!” before rushing your (soon-to-be) sister-in-law in her father’s bar for giving him directions to the previously mentioned strip club instead of the correct location is entertaining, if not slightly psychotic.

Again, there really is no call to go into this any further. Ren cannot be stopped. Tresckow was a fool for trying.

It is a bad idea to give the aforementioned (soon-to-be) sister-in-law access to your hotel key.

This wasn’t my room. Quite frankly, I would have tossed her off the balcony. This was, once again, Ren’s attempt to be sisterly to Tresckow. Of course, the sisterly thing to do is steal a copy of your “soon-to-be sister-in-law’s self adopted brother[in-law]’s” room key. It’s also sisterly to empty the mini bar fridge, fill the empty alcohol bottles with water, and sneak into his room at 2:30 in the morning to jump up and down on his bed to check if he’s asleep. I’m not quite sure how that rowdy Mick survived. Tresckow must be getting soft in his old age.

When an Irish biker tells a bartender to give him the entire whiskey bottle, the bartender better do so.

This is just good self preservation instincts. It isn’t worth getting castrated, then stuffed in the trunk of your own car for a job that only pays minimum wage. Leave that to the executives.

Slam dancing shouldn’t be done at a wedding reception. Tables will break.

No, no, a thousand times NO! Wedding receptions don’t have mosh pits for a bloody reason. I’m never going to get that deposit back now.

Repeated threats made against the groom by the bride’s brother as a warning to treat his sister right probably shouldn’t be made as part of a toast during the rehearsal dinner. Or in the church rehearsal. Or at the reception… or in notes nailed to his parents’ door.

It may not be a good idea to wake up at 3:30 AM the day of your wedding and make your brother go on a three hour drive to your house, “just cause.”

Let’s just say discovering the bride is missing on the wedding day puts a damper on things. I reckon it also looked like Tresckow kidnapped me. It’s the bride’s prerogative! I wanted to talk to my brother and go on a drive. That drive ended up being a three hour trek to my house, across the border, into Montana. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought I left the iron on. Just let it go. We almost hit a moose and, actually, backed into a big horn sheep. That’s penance enough. Besides, I came back; with an hour to spare, thank you very bloody much.

Loudly discussing how to make pipe bombs from every day household items to blow up the British in Belfast isn’t suitable conversation for a hotel gift shop.

Need I say more? I’m not sure I legally can.

Never let your sister-in-law connect an iPod to the DJ’s computer.

“Detachable Penis” [music link] isn’t traditional wedding music. It just isn’t. Anytime a mother has to explain to her son the concept of a detachable penis during a wedding reception is just an investment in future therapy bills.

Songs about suicide probably shouldn’t be requested at a wedding reception.